What if she, Sylvia, were to go on past her own house, on up to the ridge, and appeal to that unworldly woman for succor? Was there a refuge there for such as she?
But this was the merest passing fancy. Where the tides of life ran high she had been moulded; here in the open she would meet her end, whatever the end might be.
She sat inside her house throughout that long day. Beside an open window she kept her place, staring toward Eagle Pass, her eyes widening whenever a figure appeared on the highway.
But the individual she feared—Fectnor, her father, a furtive messenger—did not appear.
Harboro came at last: Harboro, bringing power and placidity.
She ran out to the gate to meet him. Inside the house she flung herself into his arms.
He marvelled at her intensity. He held her a long moment in his embrace. Then he gazed into her eyes searchingly. “Everything is all right,” he said—the words being an affirmation rather than a question. He had read an expression of dread in her eyes.
“Yes, everything is all right,” she echoed. Everything was right now. She seemed to awaken from a horrible nightmare. Harboro’s presence put to flight an army of fears. She could scarcely understand why she had been so greatly disturbed. No harm could come to him, or to her. He was too strong, too self-contained, to be menaced by little creatures. The bigness of him, the penetrating, kindly candor of his eyes, would paralyze base minds and violent hands seeking to do him an injury. The law had sanctioned their union, too—and the law was powerful.
She held to that supporting thought, and during the rest of the evening she was untroubled by the instinctive knowledge that even the law cannot make right what the individual has made wrong.
She was as light-hearted as a child that night, and Harboro, after the irksome restraints of the day, rejoiced in her. They played at the game of love again; and old Antonia, in her place down-stairs, thought of that exchange of letters and darkly pondered.